419 scam entices with lottery win

Email recipients are lured by a promise of a million pounds from a legitimate charity.

A new phishing campaign, purportedly from a family foundation, offers "randomly selected" individuals a million pounds ($1.3 million) – if they provide personal details, according to a blog post from Malwarebytes Labs.

The scam exploits the good fortune of David and Carol Martin, who last year won 33 million pounds ($44.5 million) in a U.K. lottery. The fraudsters behind the email scam conflate that news with the establishment in 2001 of the Martin Family Foundation, a U.S.-based charitable, nonprofit entity unrelated to the U.K. lottery winners.

Recipients are deceived by the friendly message which promises a fabulous offer with tales of a far-off, albeit legitimate charity.

Malwarebytes advises those receiving the email to not be fooled by its promise of millions. The message is merely another instance of scammers taking advantage of a news event to entice naive individuals to give up their personal information, they said. "Avoid!"

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